Did physicians and psychologists help the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency
develop a new research protocol to assess and refine the use of waterboarding
or other harsh interrogation techniques?

This is the question being raised in a new
report by a leading human rights organization. The group says that, if
confirmed, it would likely constitute a "new, previously unknown category
of ethical violations committed by CIA physicians and psychologists."

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) charges that the "extent to which American
physicians and psychologists violated human rights and betrayed the ethical
standards of their professions by designing, implementing, and legitimizing
a worldwide torture program is greater than previously known."

A team of PHR doctors authored the new white paper, "Aiding Torture:
Health Professionals’ Ethics and Human Rights Violations Demonstrated in the
May 2004 Inspector General’s Report."

The report details how the CIA relied on medical expertise to rationalize
and carry out abusive and unlawful interrogations. It also refers to aggregate
collection of data on detainees’ reaction to interrogation methods.

"PHR is concerned that this data collection and analysis may amount to
human experimentation," the report says.

For example, the report says, "Interrogators would place a cloth over
a detainee’s face to block breathing and induce feelings of fear, helplessness,
and a loss of control. A doctor would stand by to monitor and calibrate this
physically and psychologically harmful act, which amounts to torture."

"It is profoundly unsettling to learn of the central role of health professionals
in laying a foundation for U.S. government lawyers to rationalize the CIA’s
illegal torture program," it says.

Frank Donaghue, PHR’s chief executive officer, told IPS, "Health professionals
violated ethical duties by participating in the torture and abuse of detainees
in U.S. custody. PHR has long demanded a full investigation into the role health
professionals played in detainee treatment. PHR again calls upon health professional
associations to support a nonpartisan commission of inquiry."

"It is time for the American Medical Association, the American Psychological
Association, and others to demand a nonpartisan commission to investigate these
crimes," he said. "The associations must sanction any of their membership
found to have violated their professional ethics."

These and other professional organizations have condemned participation by
their members in detainee interrogations.

The inspector general’s report documents some practices – previously
unknown or unconfirmed – that were used to bring about excruciating pain,
terror, humiliation, and shame for months on end.

These practices included: Mock executions; brandishing guns and power drills;
threats to sexually assault family members and murder children; "walling"
– repeatedly slamming an unresponsive detainee’s head against a cell wall;
and confinement in a box.

"The required presence of health professionals did not make interrogation
methods safer, but sanitized their use, escalated abuse, and placed doctors
and psychologists in the untenable position of calibrating harm rather than
serving as protectors and healers," said co-author Steven Reisner, Ph.D.,
PHR’s psychological ethics adviser.

"The fact that psychologists went beyond monitoring, and actually designed
and implemented these abuses – while simultaneously serving as ‘safety
monitors’ – reveals the ethical bankruptcy of the entire program,"
Reisner said.

"That health professionals who swear to oaths of healing so abused the
sacred trust society places in us by instigating, legitimizing, and participating
in torture, is an abomination," states co-author Allen Keller, MD, director
of the Bellevue Medical Center/New York University Program for Survivors of
Torture.

"Health professionals who aided torture must be held accountable by professional
associations, by state licensing boards, and by society. Accountability is
essential to maintain trust in our professions and to end torture, which scars
bodies and minds, leaving survivors to endure debilitating injuries, humiliating
memories and haunting nightmares," Keller said.

PHR has called for full investigation and remedies, including accountability
for war crimes, and reparation, such as compensation, medical care and psycho-social
services. PHR also calls for health professionals who have violated ethical
standards or the law to be held accountable through criminal prosecution, loss
of license and loss of professional society membership where appropriate.

The report by the CIA’s now-retired inspector general, John Helgerson, was
prepared in 2004. In response to a Freedom of Information lawsuit brought by
the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a heavily redacted version of the
report was released earlier.

But because many pages of it were totally blacked out and unreadable, the
ACLU asked a federal judge to order the CIA to release a less-redacted version.
That version, with some sections still blacked out, was released last month.

Its publication sparked a firestorm of controversy, with key figures such
as former vice president Dick Cheney defending the CIA’s interrogation practices
and accusing the Barack Obama administration of aiding terrorists by making
the report public.

It has reportedly also resulted in heated arguments between Attorney General
Eric Holder and Leon Panetta, head of the CIA. Both are recent Obama appointments.

Holder has since appointed a special prosecutor to conduct a preliminary investigation
to determine whether criminal charges should be pursued against CIA operatives
who exceeded the guidelines provided to them by lawyers in the Justice Department
during the administration of former president George W. Bush.

The CIA’s interrogation methods were declared legal by the Justice Department
under president Bush. Recently released memoranda asserting their legality
have been attacked by many legal scholars and human rights advocates.